After a particularly bad relationship ended in 2023, tiny pieces of me covered the streets of San Diego, filling every pothole and sidewalk crack with the parts of my heart shattered by that love.
I scrolled TikTok daily, watching every influencer and content creator who offered advice on how to heal from a toxic relationship while trying to put myself back together. I felt hope as social media tarot card readers told me that my love was just around the corner, but mostly, I sat on my phone to feel less alone.
When I turned 40 in January of 2024, I was finally in a better place to start dating again, but I found that the app world was a whole other universe for people my age.
So, I took matters into my own hands and launched a dating column to seek advice from relationship experts and dissect the current local landscape. Unhinged, A Dating Serieswas born—my platform to check in with other local singles and find answers to all of our burning love queries.
But I’m not the first San Diego Magazine editor to take up the mantle. Throughout its 76 years, the mag has consistently covered the dating scene in the city. Going back through old issues, I find titles like “Falling in Serious Love” (1984), “Love on the Internet.com” (1997), and “Older Women, Younger Men” (2003).
A quote in that first article reminded me that, while the world has drastically changed in the last four decades, much has also stayed the same. “Singles bars are kind of like New Year’s Eve,” observes Nora Slattery, a local businesswoman. “Everyone thinks they’re supposed to be having a great time. But if you really look at the scene, most of them aren’t. And the chances of meeting someone among the vast number of people who also like French films, the symphony, and Chinese food are really slim—unless you do your drinking at a Chinese restaurant that has a foreign film festival.”
As hard as things are today, at least we can call out our passion for Francophile cinema in our Bumble bios.
After a year of writing the column—publishing nearly 40 articles, transcribing hours of interviews, getting vulnerable about my own love life, and drinking plenty of wine—I’ve finally begun to better understand San Diego’s dating climate.
While the city’s singles haven’t cracked a foolproof formula to finding their perfect match, I do believe we’re entering a more earnest era. People are getting back out there to meet others in the real world, and they’re looking for partners that share their values. Relationship structures are becoming increasingly diverse. And daters are putting in the work to become better partners by checking in with their own mental health and aiming to understand what makes their significant others feel loved—so there’s plenty to look forward to in 2025.
A Return to Meeting People IRL
When the pandemic hit in 2020, it altered everything about our lives, including the way we date. With the opportunity for in-person interactions significantly reduced, dating apps became one of the few places you could actually chat with new people, leading to a renewed focus on virtual connections.
But centering tech-driven romance was a long time coming. In February of 1997, a feature in San Diego Magazine entitled “Love on the Internet.com” discussed a novel way to search for your soulmate: “on the electronic highway.” Even then, the challenges were palpable.
“It’s so competitive,” personal matchmaker Debra Winkler told SDM writer Virginia Butterfield. “Nobody can just be attractive, they have to be gorgeous. And everybody says they look 15 years younger than they really are.”
Even after matching with someone, Butterfield points out, “you could chat for months before a real date occurs.” While it’s more rare to be off the apps than on them nowadays, the sense that they just aren’t working persists.
“I think the challenging part is getting to the date,” 44-year-old San Diego county resident Matthew Roberts says about his own romantic struggles. “There [are] just so many different profiles, and [maybe] this person looks great, but you never get a response from them, or even if you do get a response, it’s a line and then they’re gone.”
Roberts isn’t the only one over the ghosting. Last year, we began to see a huge shift in people ditching Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, and other apps to get back out into the world and more actively seek their match—a post-pandemic reemergence of sorts.
“The societal mentality of being willing to go beyond yourself and speak and connect and exchange and share with other people in any kind of setting—that’s the mentality that’s slowly but surely been shifting since we came out of the pandemic,” South Park resident Brianna Wilkerson tells me. “I feel hopeful for everybody that we’re in a place now where we can just do that with more ease and more excitement and embrace the opportunity to do that at any given moment.”
Activity-based gatherings intended to casually bring together singles with similar interests are likely to become much more common in 2025. It’s a natural progression of a phenomenon that was already gathering steam. “A perfect storm of pandemic-induced loneliness coupled with serious dating-app fatigue has turned the city’s sports leagues, running clubs, and gyms into the hottest places to date in New York,” The Cut reported last year.
The same was true of San Diego, with singles like Wilkerson taking matters into their own hands. The 44-year-old has actively been dating in the city for the past six years, but she felt that when it came to her age group, there were few opportunities to meet someone in person—after all, the bar scene had worn out its welcome some years ago.
So, Wilkerson decided to host her own singles’ mixer last July. Forty-five attendees showed up ready to make a match. Bolstered by the success of her first event, Wilkerson is throwing her second one this month and hopes to continue to offer more chances for locals to meet each other outside of their phones.
The Need for Stability and Emotional Availability Will Dictate Future Dates
If Covid pushed us to start meeting people in real life again, it also changed our priorities—after years of “unprecedented times” and an uncertain future, it’s no wonder singles began craving commitment and stability.
In November of last year, the dating app Bumble released its 2025 Dating Trends study, which surveyed more than 40,000 Gen Z and millennial users worldwide to find out what singles were searching for this year.
The data showed that 59 percent of women respondents were looking for someone emotionally dependable and emotionally stable and choosing to talk about these topics in the early stages of a courtship—proof that now, more than ever, women are no longer willing to waste their time with someone whose long-term goals and values don’t match with theirs.
Bumble is calling this “future proofing” and expects 2025 to be a transitional year, one in which people will be more upfront about what they want and need from the get-go.
“One in three users are discussing heavy-hitting topics earlier in their dating journeys than before, leading to candid conversations about budgeting, housing, climate change, and job ambitions,” a Bumble spokesperson tells me. “We’re seeing that people are taking a more active role in identifying and controlling these things where and how they can, including in their relationships.”
As a single dad looking for someone who “matches his energy,” Roberts sees the benefit of getting these questions out of the way during initial dates.
“I try to get to a place [on dates] where we’re talking about what we want in life. Values. You know, kids, dogs, traveling, what they love, health and fitness, meditation, self-improvement,” he adds. “So I talk about all those things and see how they reciprocate.”
Trading in Monogamy for Non-Traditional Relationship Structures
Of course, future proofing requires a good idea of what you want out of a relationship—and, increasingly, daters are finding that traditional monogamy may not be what feels most authentic for them.
In 2023, Match.com’s annual Singles in America study of more than 5,000 people found that 49 percent of singles indicated monogamy as their ideal sexual relationship structure, meaning that more than half are open to non-traditional structures such as consensual non-monogamy. Survey participants noted that they’d participated in swinging, open relationships, polyamory (being in committed relationships with more than one person with the consent of all people involved), and being somewhat monogamous (allowing for sexual variety either together as a couple or individually).
Those numbers are a big jump from previous studies, including a 2021 YouGov poll in which 25 percent of surveyed Americans said they’d be interested in having an open relationship.
The shift has been the most noticeable amongst members of Gen Z, who are more fluid in their sexual orientation and more diverse in their views on monogamy, according to Dr. Miriam Torres Brinkmann, a San Diego licensed marriage and family therapist and relationship coach. “Younger people [are] more open to that as a possibility that they are willing to explore. They’re less rigid,” she says.
But conversations about non-monogamy have become more mainstream across generations, with shows like Peacock’s Couple to Throuplehelping lead the way.
“People are talking more about opening up their relationship. There [are] a lot more conversations around just exactly what dating means and what people’s expectations are when they’re in a relationship,” says Christopher Wilhelm, a San Diego–based licensed professional clinical counselor with more than 15 years of clinical mental health experience. “I think people nowadays feel like if they’re in an exclusive relationship, they’re kind of cutting themselves off from other possibilities.”
Choosing non-monogamy allowed 36-year-old SD local Jess Parker and his husband Alex Aragon to add a third person to their relationship. The pair and their boyfriend are in a closed throupledom, meaning that all three of them are sexually and romantically involved with each other, but they don’t date outside of their threesome (they define this dynamic as “polyfidelity”).
“When the two of us started dating polyamorously, there definitely was messiness. It was a lot harder, just because you don’t know how to react to things,” Parker says. “But as time went on, there were lessons learned; your own boundaries start being understood more.”
Dr. Brinkmann’s advice for anyone interested in polyamory or an open relationship? Constant communication. “If it works, it can be really fulfilling,” she adds. “But it requires a lot of communication and [knowing your] boundaries. If you don’t have clarity in the boundaries, then it can be very messy.”
Social Media is Helping Us Learn How to be More Mindful Daters
Thankfully, people dating today talk about the importance of boundaries a lot—but it wasn’t always that way. Past SDM dating articles from our archives never mention the word, and other now-familiar therapeutic terms like “attachment styles” and “gaslighting” are absent, too.
However, as digital content creation started to become a legitimate career path starting in the early 2000s, we saw the rise of “social media therapists” in the mid-to-late 2010s. These mental health professionals use YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok to offer educational content on therapeutic concepts, reaching people who can’t afford therapy or aren’t currently interested in it.
And many saw their platforms grow during the pandemic, when people sought online access to mental health information and support. Armed with new language, people began to speak more freely about topics that were once only discussed behind closed doors.
“Some people like to complain that psychology words, clinical words, are now super mainstream, but I see the [benefit],” Dr. Brinkmann says. “Now everyone has more awareness.”
Knowledge of these concepts can help people become better partners—take the concept of “love languages” as one example. In 1992, marriage counselor Gary Chapman introduced the term to the world in his book The 5 Love Languages.
Chapman claims that everyone gives and receives love differently—and that understanding your loved one’s ideal language is the key to a successful relationship (whether romantic or not). He identified five basic love languages: acts of service, physical touch, receiving gifts, quality time, and words of affirmation. The theory has since become so mainstream that apps like Hinge and Tinder have a dedicated space for users to list theirs.
“People are trying to figure out what they can do to speak their love language better to their partner and what theirs is so they can communicate better with them,” Wilhelm says.
Whether they gain a deeper understanding of these concepts in their own therapy sessions or from their For You pages, singles will increasingly explore therapeutic language and ideas as a way to strengthen relationships and become more mindful daters in 2025. It’s all part of an age of increased earnestness and openness and more real-life encounters—one in which we understand ourselves and each other better, hopefully finding more enduring and fulfilling love in the process.
Interested in keeping up with the latest in the San Diego dating space? Join the Unhinged community by signing up for our love and dating newsletter below.
Nicolle Monico is an award-winning writer and the director of creative projects, digital editor for San Diego Magazine with more than 16 years of experience in media including Outside Run, JustLuxe and The San Francisco Chronicle.
Before, during, and after the Fourth of July, San Diegans can commemorate America’s 250th anniversary with an abundance of stars, stripes and local celebrations. America The Beautiful: 250 at The Rady Shell and Lamb’s Players Theatre’s revival of American Rhythm will look back at the many songs which define our country. Liberty Station’s Anchored in Freedom celebration and the Independence Day Carnival offer community-centered fun and loads of family-friendly activities. And who can possibly forget the Big Bay Boom, which will resume its reign over San Diego Bay as the state’s biggest fireworks show. Outside of the holiday festivities, this week brings the yearly return of Little Italy’s Summer Sera and the Athenaeum Summer Festival, as well as a slate of championship matches for All Elite Wrestling.
Sip on refreshing beverages and savor a panoramic rooftop view this Friday from 6-8 p.m. during the 21-plus Sunset & Spritz at Margaritaville Hotel San Diego Gaslamp Quarter’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar. There will be a live DJ (until 9 p.m.), appetizers, pool and cabana access, a photo booth, and a cash bar (until 11 p.m.). To accentuate the summer theme, guests are invited to dress in white, pink, and orange attire. Tickets are $29 and come with a welcome aperol spritz.
616 J Street, Gaslamp
The 250 Grand Tasting Menu at Amaya
July 3 & 4
Bring a patriotic palette to the Fairmont Grand Del Mar for The 250 Grand Tasting Menu at Amaya this Friday and Saturday from 5-8:30 p.m. Patrons will be treated to a five-course tasting menu, curated to exhibit a selection of standout regional flavors and culinary concepts that have shaped our country’s distinct food heritage. The meal will also include beverage pairings with each course, such as wine, cocktails, and artisanal drinks. Reservations are $330 per person (with tax and 20% gratuity) on OpenTable.
Don Toliver thrives at being the life of the party (and the “After Party”). His fifth album Octane, released in February, is indicative of his thrill-seeking nature. As with his earlier releases, Octane sees Toliver operating in the space between hip-hop and R&B, with warbling vocals and blaring beats that are best heard at a high volume. This Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., Toliver will play at Pechanga Arena, with rappers SoFaygo, Chase B and SahBabii—who had a guest verse on Octane standout “K9”—as special guests. Tickets start at $156 for this concert.
What makes musicals like Wicked, Cats, Chicago, and Jersey Boys so timeless is the legion of excellent songs that makes fans out of those who’ve never even watched the show. This Friday at 7:30 p.m. during Blockbuster Broadway! at The Rady Shell, conductor Evan Roider, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and veteran vocalists Alex Getlin, Jessica Hendy, Scott Coulter, and John Boswell (also on piano) will perform an all-star theater soundtrack. In addition to the shows named above, audiences can expect songs from A Chorus Line, The Phantom of the Opera, Annie,and more. Tickets range from $57 to $129 for this concert.
222 Marina Park Way, Embarcadero
America The Beautiful: 250 at The Rady Shell
July 4
One night after recognizing the brilliance of Broadway, The Rady Shell will ring in the United States’ landmark anniversary with America The Beautiful: 250 this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Conductor Byron Stripling, joined by a five-performer ensemble and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, will lead a night of ballads that best resemble the red, white, and blue, including songs sourced from the Great American Songbook. After the show, concertgoers are invited to watch the nearby Big Bay Boom from their seats. Tickets range from $71 to $139 for this concert.
222 Marina Park Way, Embarcadero
Athenaeum Summer Festival at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library
Ryan Hardison is a freelance arts and entertainment writer and recent graduate of San Diego State. When he's not staring at his laptop, he's likely eating an adobada burrito or getting sunburnt at the beach.
“This is insane!” the guy filming it seems to proclaim. “It’s the best fireworks show ever!” a companion confirms, inspiring a debate lasting over a decade.
All told, 7,000 fireworks exploded in the span of 25 seconds over San Diego Bay on July 4, 2012. A Michael Bay amount of unison. $125,000 worth of shells, cakes, Roman candles, and skyrockets had been placed on a barge—enough for 17 minutes of decorative sky flares—and…
Boom.
The sky looked like someone had set a giant Rorschach test on fire. Or as if whatever we all see in our Rorschachs—butterflies, clowns, tongue kissing, dads—was being electrocuted and lifted heavenward, amen. It was shocking how bright it was, how much it sizzled the local cosmos. Could’ve been one of those sci-fi films where a hole is ripped open between warring universes. But angstier, more metal—the work of some methy creator in a sleeveless concert tee.
The sound?
Lou Reed once released an entire album that contained 64 minutes of mindflaying guitar screeches and machine noises. No regular songs, just a fascinating amount of ear distress. His record label reps no doubt heard the melodic outro of their careers, but everyone else was in pain and stumped. That album still sounded better than the bay did that night. The bay sounded like a god who struggled with emotional regulation had blown his speakers and was working through the anger stage of AV grief.
In the left frame of the video, a middle-aged woman is attempting to drag her husband off by the hand. In no way does he want to go, possibly because he had missed the time Roseanne Barr sung the national anthem at a Padres game, simultaneously disemboweling and amusing America through the power of song. He would not willingly abandon an equally worthy San Diego trainwreck.
Another woman in the video appears to have just filled her beer, rushing to sit down for the show. She pauses mid-sit and returns to the full and upright position to properly bear witness. What was supposed to be prolonged entertainment has been so radically shortened that she will have to find another reason to drink. Lucky for her, drinking will be the only way to adequately process.
Locals remember the conspiracy theories. People wondered if the fuses had been tripped by a saboteur who was sympathetic to dogs, fish, or the growing suspicion that late-stage capitalism is a gorgeously branded but impossible dream sustained by remarkably efficient top-tier wealth retention and the soft compliance of fireworks-watchers who can no longer afford a house, a beer, or the personal impacts of human reproduction.
Speaking of being terrified of babies, babies were terrified. The children who witnessed it probably still can’t go near a candle store. But those kids will be tougher, perfectly scarred kids. They’ll write better songs.
That night helped us absolutely dominate the national news cycle. For a hot minute, we became America’s water-skiing squirrel. Now, years later, when you Google “fireworks gone wrong,” San Diego is always a top contender, along with that poor Nebraska family who nearly wiped out a couple generations in their front yard, their minivan somehow turning into a howitzer of recreational TNT.
There is still debate as to whether Big Bay Boom 2012 is the worst or greatest fireworks show of all time. But the advanced parts of civilization arrived at the truth as quickly as the women in the video did. It was undeniably amazing.
First of all, the point of Fourth of July fireworks isn’t “the intricate choreography of sky fire over a guaranteed amount of show time.” It’s about creating a vivid memory shared with some people you like, love, or would like to love.
BBB2012 used large-scale chemical fire to create the ultimate memory.
Sure, some people who iron their jeans subjected their family to a sermon about how San Diego managed to botch America’s birthday like a Disney princess-for-hire who smelled of quite a few Sauvignons.
The rest of us saw how perfectly it nailed the actual feeling of being an American. Because only a miniscule percentage of us bake postcard apple pies where every inch of crust is perfectly laminated like the wood in an Irish bar. Very few of us can paint on par with Picasso. The rest of us—despite truly believing in our America-activated abilities to achieve greatness in almost any field of our choosing—burn pies. We try to paint only to realize it looks like our fine motor skills have entered active death.
That’s why BBB2012 was the most perfectly American fireworks show ever: A wildly ambitious idea galvanized thousands upon thousands of people to both work on it and come to hold a beer and gawk at it, only to have it fail in the most glorious TMZ-level spectacle.
America isn’t about immaculate, storyless wins. It’s about how the framework of a country is solid enough that we can accidentally detonate our entire lives—a few times—and still probably be OK.
No one has America’d quite like San Diego did on that day. It was performance art. Lou Reed’s heart slow-clapped. Any brief municipal embarrassment quickly became a pride of our people. I can only hope the same for the Nebraskan yard family whose Dodge Aerostar became a hyperactive Death Star.
P.S. Local writer Maya Kroth compiled a quite great oral history of that night for Thrillist. The bottom lines for me were—it took nine months to prepare, no one was hurt, and even though the pyrotechnics company tried to zero out the bill, Big Bay Boom founder H. P. “Sandy” Purdon refused and paid them in full. This year will mark the 25th Anniversary of the yearly Big Bay Boom.
Troy Johnson is the magazine’s award-winning food writer and humorist, and a long-standing expert on Food Network. His work has been featured on NatGeo, Travel Channel, NPR, and in Food Matters, a textbook of the best American food writing.
If absence makes hearts (and stomachs) grow fonder, then shuttered restaurants quickly become the hottest tickets in town—something a number of iconic institutions found out after taking very public hiatuses after historically long runs. For instance, following a lengthy (and extremely flip-floppy) closing process after 92 years in business, Las Cuatro Milpas reopened two blocks away in Mercado del Barrio. Similarly, Carlsbad butcher shop Tip Top Meats reopened in the same location (albeit a smaller space) after the death of founder Joachim “Big John” Haedrich in 2023. Finally, after a whopping decade out of business, Sami Ladeki and chef Alfie Szeprethy brought back Roppongi to its original Prospect Street space, where it was the talk of the town in the late ’90s. All came back under the same proprietors, so they weren’t third-party nostalgia-licensing deals. The algorithm may have ravaged our attention spans away from all but the newest and shiniest, but this proves there’s still hope for our collective prefrontal cortex.
Other local eateries honored their pasts by bringing in new perspectives. The Lion’s Share in Embarcadero, Milton’s Deli in Del Mar, Dudley’s Bakery in Santa Ysabel, and J-K’s Greek Cafe in La Mesa handed over the keys to new owners willing to take on a big task: maintain the soul of icons through particularly rough economic circumstances for restaurants, navigate big feelings from longtime regulars (who often don’t take kindly to change), and make some necessary changes to keep going for another few decades. Taking over a project in process can be a lot harder than starting from scratch. But building that feel-good nostalgia doesn’t happen overnight, so it sure helps to have a well-established playbook of success passed down from those who came before.
Courtesy of Sugarfish
The Expansion Class Arrives
It wasn’t just restaurant groups from Los Angeles that decided to put down roots en masse, although San Diego saw plenty of LA transplants recently (Sugarfish, Mr. Charlie’s, For the Win, Katsuya Ko, Bacari). Global brands like Chef Fei, Zuma, and Pepper Lunch have locations of their own on the way, and upscale Canadian eatery Joey joined to the inescapable gravitational pull of Westfield UTC’s culinary cosmos for its first spot in America’s Finest City. Good to see the rest of the world is catching up with what we’ve been seeing the last few years—San Diego is a dining destination already on the rise.
Choosing To Not Choose
Between the never-ending news cycle of doom and perimenopause brain fog, I’m at the stage in life where I’m more than happy to let someone else make a decision for me, especially when it comes to what’s for dinner. And based on the way a lot of menus look right now, I’m not alone. It seems like half the places I visit offer some version of a prix fixe, omakase, or tasting menu. Restaurants are embracing the curated experience to solve the problem of affordability (a fixed menu reduces food and labor costs, guarantees an acceptable check average, etc.) and critical thinking in one fell swoop. Omakase (meaning “I leave it up to you”) is far from a new concept in high-end Japanese sushi culture, but now that it’s popping up everywhere from coffee experiences to grab-and-go sushi and sandwiches, it’s gone from somewhat niche to nearly omnipresent.
Courtesy of Rikka Fika
Local Coffee Hit the World Stage
The world got an up-close look at San Diego’s coffee industry when we hosted the premier specialty coffee expo World of Coffee for the first time this April. San Diego’s long and rich coffee history stretches back to the late 19th century. Things percolated fairly quietly for around a century before really picking up steam. Today, there are nearly 200 specialty roasters and cafes across the county, with many earning national accolades like the Good Food Award (Steady State Roasting, 2020; Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, 2023, 2021, 2019, 2017, 2016), Roaster of the Year by Roast Magazine (Mostra Coffee, 2020; Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, 2012), and the Specialty Coffee Association Coffee Design Award for packaging (Rikka Fika, 2026). Now that we’ve moved past the comically insufferable coffee snob era of the early 2000s, even java newbies can feel comfortable walking into pretty much any coffee shop in San Diego, asking questions, trying a few things, and feeling confident they’re going to get great service and a great beverage.
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
Kelly H. Harfouche, founder of KQ Aesthetic Society, knows firsthand that cosmetic treatments like fillers, neurotoxins, and microneedling, can not only enhance a person’s appearance and restore confidence, they have the power to truly change a person’s life. An expert injector has the ability to tailor treatments to each individual patient’s anatomy and goals for personalized results. Harfouche, a board-certified nurse practitioner, has spent nearly a decade perfecting her craft as an aesthetic injector and integrating her multifaceted artistic skills with precision patient care. Her commitment to continual education and training, plus a passion for helping people look—and feel—their best, set KQ Aesthetic Society apart in a sea of local medspas.
For many people considering nonsurgical treatments, the intent is to look refreshed and refined. KQ Aesthetic Society’s philosophy eschews a cookie cutter approach that bases treatments around units, instead working to understand each person’s unique goals, then curating a treatment plan to fit that vision. Harfouche focuses on “inclusive luxury,” the belief that everyone deserves access to aesthetic treatments, respective of budget restrictions. She develops long-standing trusted relationships with her patients, and works with each one to achieve their aesthetic objectives and address the underlying causes of their concerns.
“For me, forming an honest and open relationship with every patient who walks through the door is essential. This means understanding them on a deeper level and meeting them where they are to define and achieve their individual goals,” she says.
Drawing on her artistic background, which inspired her transition into medical aesthetics, Harfouche sees each client as a “unique canvas.” Rather than relying on standardized procedures, the practitioner’s distinctive approach combines her profound understanding of the physiological and anatomical changes associated with aging with an unwavering commitment to ongoing education about the newest products and their mechanisms of action. Her goal is to make each patient feel beautiful in their own skin and to embrace their individuality.
She has also pioneered a way to combine her talent for aesthetic artistry with her philanthropic nature. Harfouche is one of only a handful of providers using dermal fillers to treat patients with lip asymmetry and scarring resulting from cleft lip surgery. Patients travel from around the country for this transformative treatment, noting increased confidence and a restored identity. She hopes to eventually launch a training program to help fill the void in this space.
“My passion has always been connecting with people and giving back in any capacity that I can,” she says. In the rapidly advancing landscape of aesthetic medicine, you can place your confidence in Harfouche and KQ Aesthetic Society to deliver exceptional care. To learn more or book a consultation, please visit kqaestheticsociety.com.
Summer has officially kicked off, and San Diego is celebrating the sunny season with a myriad of fun events. From San Diego Pride week and a fairytale performance at Civic Theatre to a Santigold concert and Comic-Con, there are dozens of opportunities to make memories worth adding to your scrapbook. Here are all the best things to do in San Diego this July:
Divine inspirations, operatic ballads, and symphonic pop production elevate Rosalía’s Lux to heavenly levels. Hear angelic vocals ascend—in up to 13 languages—during her performance at Pechanga Arena.
Enjoy a night of feel-good indie rock and sing-along anthems at the Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre courtesy of Young the Giant and special guest Cold War Kids.
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Santigold collects genres like gold stars: musical accouterments that brighten her uniquely alternative sound. See her live in concert with dancehall producer Troy Baker Sound at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay.
Two male government workers pursue a secret romance amid the Lavender Scare in the San Diego Opera’s production of “Fellow Travelers” at the Balboa Theatre.
Audrey Hepburn. Marlon Brando. Salvador Dalí. What do these icons have in common? Each was the enigmatic focus of a Cecil Beaton portrait. Step inside Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World, an alluring showcase of 20th-century style at San Diego Museum of Art.
Courtesy of San Diego Pride
More Fun Things to Do in San Diego This Month
1
The Little Italy Mercato will trade morning rays for golden-hour glow through its free Summer Sera, an expansion of the neighborhood’s farmers market with live music, artisanal finds, and a fetching amount of pet activities.
11–19
San Diego Pride week starts with a Dyke March and ends with the two-day “Pride Shines On” festival. The days in between? Run a 5K, march in the parade, visit the rainbow-lit St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, and more.
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Dress up for a Mediterranean-themed tea time at the Estancia La Jolla, a laid-back yet refined afternoon planned for the resort’s monthly Tea in the Garden series.
23–26
Nerd culture’s biggest gathering returns to the Convention Center. San Diego Comic-Con welcomes fans of everything from comic book cinema to ultra-rare collectibles for panels, exhibits, sneak peeks, and much more.
Ryan Hardison is a freelance arts and entertainment writer and recent graduate of San Diego State. When he's not staring at his laptop, he's likely eating an adobada burrito or getting sunburnt at the beach.
You’re coasting home after a weekend in Rosarito Beach—still riding the high of vitamin D and Baja Med—and then comes a slap back into reality: brakelights and gridlock exhaust.
Small wonder, given that San Ysidro is the busiest land border crossing in the western hemisphere (fourth-busiest in the world). Otay Mesa’s no breeze either; it’s the busiest commercial port in California and second-busiest across the entire southern border. Smart Border Coalition says that each day last year, 41,800 vehicles crossed into the US at San Ysidro; 17,800 crossed at Otay Mesa, along with 1,023,000 commercial trucks.
Diana Pazos, a San Diego resident and adolescent psychiatrist working in Tijuana, says the northbound border wait at the San Ysidro crossing is often three to five hours Saturday through Monday—delays that modern humans and multinational maquiladoras alike aren’t built to endure. At the current Otay crossing, “commercial trucks may be in line for six hours or longer,” she says.
Needing to bake a couple hours of commute into the States doesn’t just affect vacations; tens of thousands of people cross the border each day for doctor’s appointments, work, school, you name it. The clog has personal and commercial ramifications.
But change is coming. Construction has begun on a new border crossing in Otay Mesa, which is expected to significantly reduce wait times across all San Diego border crossings, bolster binational trade, and improve the air pollution levels in the area.
Nikki Tiongco, an 18-year Caltrans veteran who oversees the Otay Mesa East project (aka Otay 2) for the agency, says the new border crossing will also be among the most high-tech, efficient, and secure border crossings in the nation.
“We have already completed the roadway network within the Otay Mesa East region,” says Tiongco. Part of this project included building State Route 11, an extension of SR 905, which has been open to the public since August and will feed traffic to the new entry port. Otay 2 comes with a 21st century upgrade, too. Miles of fiber-optic cables have been installed underground, which gives the port the brainpower to efficiently sort and streamline traffic as cars approach the border. (Unlike the San Ysidro border, where lanes get organized by vehicle type, Otay 2’s lanes will be interchangeable. For example, if the system indicates that a high number of commercial trucks is heading to the border, passenger lanes could be converted to cargo lanes in real time.)
Otay 2, driven by a binational collaboration among government agencies (Caltrans, SANDAG, General Services Administration, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection), receives both federal and state funding, plus hefty contributions from Mexico. So far, funds from the $1.3 billion project have helped build new bridges and roadway interchanges that will guide traffic to the crossing. At this stage in the process, Caltrans is “laser-focused on building the facility itself,” Tiongco says.
Now, to the juicy part: the prospect of a “20-to-30-minute border wait time” at Otay 2, according to Tiongco. Currently, there are three standard ways to cross the border at San Ysidro: Ready Lanes, General Lanes, or SENTRI Lanes. Most travelers use either the Ready or General lanes. SENTRI Lanes require a form of pre-approval from the US federal government plus an additional fee. According to CBP, the average wait time in 2025 at the San Ysidro crossing, was as little as 15 minutes in the SENTRI Lanes, 45 minutes in the Ready Lanes, and 1.5 to 2 hours in the General Lanes. Those are best-case scenarios that vary based on lane type and time of day.
Otay 2 is about 12 miles east of the San Ysidro crossing and 2.5 miles east of Otay 1. Those not wanting to spend that much extra time on the road to drive to the new border crossing, despite the allure of an under-30-minute wait, are still expected to see some benefits. Tiongco says Otay 2 will “provide a relief valve” overall by spreading the burden across the three border crossings. As a result, SANDAG says, wait times at San Ysidro and Otay 1 could be cut in half.
It’s not just your time waiting at the border that matters. Multinational corporations that relocated their manufacturing plants (maquiladoras) to Northern Baja have claimed for years that the long delays at Otay 1 eat away at their profits. More than 600 maquiladoras, used by companies such as Samsung and Panasonic, currently use Otay 1 to transport products to US and international markets. Ambassador Alicia G. Kerber-Palma, the consul general of Mexico in San Diego, says the project will facilitate more than $60 billion in cross-border trade annually.
Previous reports say that Otay 2 also has the capacity for around 12,000 passenger cars and 1,500 commercial trucks daily. A shiny, new element to this port: Commercial and personal vehicles that choose to cross will pay a dynamic toll on both sides of the border. The fee will increase during busy hours and decrease during slower periods, Tiongco says. Caltrans estimates that the toll could range from $4 to $30 for passenger vehicles and higher for commercial trucks. Drivers will be able to see current rates before they reach the actual border crossing.
And, with these changes, there are environmental benefits, too. “With shorter wait times at all three ports, there’s less idling and congestion, which should significantly reduce air pollution on both sides of the border,” says Kerber-Palma. The main factor driving improved air quality would be decreasing dirty emissions from idling diesel trucks. This county’s air could use some sprucing up, anyway. A 2026 report from the American Lung Association named San Diego as the fifth-most particle-polluted county in the US. The bulk of that dirty air comes from the heavy-duty trucks and ships that pass through the area.
Otay 2 is not only expected to curb the acceleration of air pollution in San Diego; if the state’s legislature passes California Senate Bill 10, the border crossing could also restore local water quality. This bill would use a portion of Otay 2 toll revenues to fund ongoing maintenance of the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant. Current media reports say, however, that it’s increasingly unlikely that SB 10 will become law.
Otay 2 has been in the works for over two decades and is finally nearing the finish line. Construction estimates show that it should be up and running in 2029. Tiongco says this border crossing is “a good example of how the state, federal and local governments are working together and with Mexico to advance our mutual goals in the region.”
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